Kid's Rocker

Bryan Cowing

Member
Messages
728
Location
Ridgetown, Ontario, Canada
Both chairs are assembled, one I stained yesterday brown. Today I wanted to stain the other chair red, but what I thought was red mahogany stain was stained polyurethane. I wondered why it was going on weird! :huh: I finished wiping the chair with it , but now I can't get the desired color I was after:(. I am painting it to cover up that mistake.:doh:The brown chair has 1 coat of satin lacquer and looks OK.
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That sure looks good, and I'm betting the painted one will be equally nice. :thumb:

Anytime I think of kid-sized rockers I think of the story told by the docent who led a group of us forum members through a tour of Sam Maloof's house a few years back. Apparently Sam had built a scaled down version of his famous rocker for a grandson. One day for show & tell at school, the grandson showed a photo of the rocker. When the teacher chastised him for only bringing a photo, the grandson said he would have brought the chair, but it was on loan at the time to the Smithsonian. :)
 
I'm sure the painted chair will look great. But I love the color you got on that brown one. Looks great.

Cool story Vaughn!
 
Boy, I see nothing wrong with it the way it is. Great chair.

I bought my wife a rocking chair when she was expecting our first child. 42 years later when my daughter had her baby, she asked if she could have the chair. It needed work and refinishing and she asked as long as I was going to refinish it for her, would I paint it black. I thought she was crazy but, you know, anything for my daughter. She had tried so hard and waited so long to finally have a baby, how could I refuse. I did and it turnout real nice. She was right.
 
Boy, I see nothing wrong with it the way it is. Great chair.

I bought my wife a rocking chair when she was expecting our first child. 42 years later when my daughter had her baby, she asked if she could have the chair. It needed work and refinishing and she asked as long as I was going to refinish it for her, would I paint it black. I thought she was crazy but, you know, anything for my daughter. She had tried so hard and waited so long to finally have a baby, how could I refuse. I did and it turnout real nice. She was right.
it's chair #2 I messed up on, been building 2 at a time. Black semi gloss is the color the wife liked. I trust her judgement.:rofl:
 
Yes, sir, that really looks nice. I could not have done that well with a brush. Did you do the turning on the legs and rails also?
Legs and dowels done on a copy lathe. I made a pexi glas pattern several years ago when I designed the kids chair, it's for the back leg. Front leg uses the same pattern. I hand turn the finials and the front fancy dowel. It's been 5 yrs since I last made a kids rocker.
 
forgetting the spindles, would you care to share the dimensions of that chair, leg length, back slat length, width, etc.......I can make round square.
front leg 16" with the 1" tenon
back leg without finial 29" with the 1" tenon
backrest top piece with the curve is 6.5" h x 12.5w + a tenon, bottom piece 2.75"x 12.5 + a tenon, slats are 2x12 with tenon. Overall assembled backrest is 20.5" tall
chair width is 15.5" at back, front is 19"
rocker is 27" long
seat slats 15" long
front dowel is 15.5 + a 1' tenon , for a total of 17.5. I drill all holes for the dowels 1" deep
distance between front and back legs 10& 5/8 + or -
armrests are 3.5 x 15 + a tenon
The angle for drilling the side dowel splay, on the back leg is 97 degrees, front is 83 degrees .
 
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